I woke up yesterday morning at 6am still buzzing from the share offer launch event on Thursday evening. It’s so exciting, after months of hard work and the ups and downs of getting an ambitious project off the ground, to finally be publically launching our share offer and inviting people to membership!

We had cake donated by lots of friends (including Cafe Kino), a presentation from myself and Mark explaining how the share offer works and what our future plans are, introductions from all of the Bristol Energy Cooperative directors, a few words from our community building partners Coexist and Knowle West Media Centre (thank you Tom Beale and Mark Baker), and yummy wraps from Magic Rolls sponsored by Buro Happold. Then we heard a bit about the Green Deal from Bridget of the Centre for Sustainable Energy, and finished with updates from Bristol Energy Network groups.

Seeing the level of support, and the number of people and organisations who contributed to help make the event happen seems like a good omen, and even though we’re all exhausted from the last week, it’s great to feel like there’s lots more good work to be done as opportunities open up.

We’ve already had pledges for 63% of the money we are aiming to raise, and as soon as enough of it is translated into actual investments, we can go ahead and install the Knowle West Media Centre PV panels, and start making use of all this sunshine we’re getting between the April showers.

But we’re not getting complacent – we know there are lots more projects in the pipeline to invest in, and we’re confident that Bristol has the capacity to invest much more than £90,000 into giving us a democratic and sustainable energy future.

There are lots of ways you can get involved, so get in touch if you have any ideas, questions or comments!